If you know how to navigate Virtual Tourist, it can give some good info about funky places. But this is the danger page for PNG and what I first read when the friend was asking about it. Then, of course, I did other searches that substantiated the stories. I dont know what a sing-sing is (other than a prison or something we did at camp) but it sounds like your hands are a bit tied.

http://www.virtualtourist.com/vt/c78/8/

Two possible solutions. First, it appears you can get a ord-aus-ord segment for about $250. You could shave the austin routing off and go lon-ord-lax, thereby saving about 500 miles. Second, you might consider doing bne-syd-nrt instead of bne-hkg-nrt. It saves 800 miles and you aren't getting first on CX anyway on the longhaul. You would, however, lose it on the NRT segment.

Just edited to add that you can get a ticket from LAX-AUS-LAX for even less than Chicago. I am showing about $215. If you did that then you could do LON-LAX-SYD and a seperate LAX-AUS-LAX flight. It would save you 800 miles from your original routing. If it were my decision and you had to keep pom, I would route:

CAI-LON-LAX-SYD-POM-BNE-SYD-HKG-NRT-HKG-BAH-AMM-BAH-CAI

Comes in at 33953 miles. Then just buy the Austin trip.